Materials for Inspectors

Describe a Room

This is a good activity for practicing the names of furniture (e.g., bed, chair, table, etc) as well as prepositions of place (e.g., next to, under, on, etc). Of course you should make sure that students understand the meaning and pronunciation of this essential vocabulary before you start this activity.

Step 1Explain to your students that you are going to tell them about your living room (or kitchen, or bedroom, etc). Draw a plan of the room on the board and perhaps also draw the windows and doors. Ask them to draw the room as you describe it. Describe the room very slowly, saying things like, "the table is in the middle of the room. There is a tv on the table". Give the students enough time to draw a few objects in the room. When you can see that they are all drawing the room, stop them, and put them into pairs.

Step 2Each student draws a plan of his living room, and then gives the piece of paper to his partner. One member of each pair describes his room. The other student draws the objects in the room.Make sure that the speaker doesn't touch the pen! It can also be fun if you ask the speaker to turn his back so that he can't see what is being drawn.

Step 3Switch partners and repeat the activity. This time the student who drew, explains his room to another student.

Step 4 (Optional)Students look at their pictures and ask each other questions about vocabulary. For example, "How do you say "xxxxx" in English.

VariationsInstead of drawing a room, they can draw a house, a person, an animal, a landscape, etc. Make sure your students know the essential vocabulary before they start.